Night did not fall upon the village of San Isidro — it lingered.
Once, the villagers prayed. Once, the chapel bells rang. But those days had long faded. Fear had taken root where faith once stood.
People began to disappear.
A farmer. A child. A traveler passing through.
None returned.
Soon, San Isidro became known for a single, dreadful truth: anyone who entered the village never came back. Stories spread, darker with each telling. Whispers of unseen things. Of something waiting.
In time, the villagers stopped praying.
The chapel doors remained closed. The name of God was spoken less and less, until even hope felt unwelcome.
When word reached the Church, they did not send missionaries.
They sent Adan.
A blind priest.
A weapon of the Church.
Adan was not a man of gentle sermons. He was trained for a singular purpose — to seek, confront, and terminate evils that walked beyond human understanding. Aswang. Creatures of shadow. Things that thrived where fear replaced faith.
Clad in black, guided by senses sharper than sight, Adan walked the road to San Isidro without hesitation.
For something had claimed the village.
And Adan had come to answer.
San Isidro greeted Adan with silence.
No voices. No footsteps. Not even the distant sounds of village life. The air itself felt heavy, unmoving. Adan stepped forward slowly, his staff touching the ground with measured rhythm.
He did not need sight.
Something was wrong.
The stillness was not peace — it was tension. A presence lingered in the spaces between breaths. The village felt… watchful.
Then —
A sudden shout pierced the quiet.
"They're everywhere!"
Adan stopped.
"Fangs in the dark!"
The voice trembled, cracked with fear.
Without hesitation, Adan turned toward the sound. His movements were calm, precise, guided by instinct more than direction. The noise led him to a small wooden cabin near the edge of the clearing.
Inside, chaos stirred.
Adan pushed the door open.
An old man stood at the center of the room, his thin frame wrapped in tattered robes that resembled those of a monk. His hair was wild, his eyes frantic, his body trembling as though resisting something unseen.
Two villagers struggled to restrain him.
"Hold him!"
"He's losing it!"
The old man thrashed violently.
"They're here!" he screamed. "Can't you see them?!"
Adan listened.
Not to the panic.
But to everything else.
Adan stepped inside, unmoved by the commotion.
"What is happening here?" he asked calmly.
One of the villagers snapped.
"What's it to you, priest?"
"Carlo! Hush."
The other villager quickly intervened, voice softer, controlled.
"My apologies, Father. You've arrived at… a difficult time."
The old man continued to shiver between them, his breathing uneven, fear dripping from every strained movement.
"We should not trouble you with this," the calmer villager continued. "Come with me. Carlo will handle things here."
Adan remained still for a moment.
Though blind, his face turned slightly toward the old man. The trembling. The terror. It was unmistakable.
Not madness.
Fear.
"Father," a woman's voice called gently from behind him.
Adan turned.
"Please, come with me. You must be exhausted from your journey. I can prepare hot coffee… something warm."
There was kindness in her tone. Steady, inviting.
Adan nodded.
Without protest, he followed.
The next cabin was alive with sound — hushed conversations, anxious murmurs, the shifting weight of many uneasy bodies. A fire crackled at the center, its warmth pushing back the creeping chill of evening.
The villagers fell quiet as Adan entered.
The woman guided him closer to the fire.
"My name is Yana," she said softly.
A cup was placed into his hands.
Warm.
Coffee.
Adan accepted it with a silent nod, listening as the room breathed around him.
Adan held the cup quietly.
He did not drink.
Instead, he listened.
The cabin was crowded, yet no one spoke. Beneath the fire's soft crackle, he felt it — a collective tension, an unease shared by every soul in the room. Breathing too shallow. Movements too restrained.
Fear lived here.
Yana broke the silence.
"Near the old ruins," she said, voice low, "something evil has taken shelter there."
The villagers shifted.
"We believe the monk wandered too close. That must be why he's like that now… shivering, terrified."
Adan turned slightly toward her.
"The monk," he asked. "Who is he?"
"You need not worry, Father," Yana replied quickly. "Carlo and the others will care for him. He will be given everything he needs."
A pause.
Then, more directly —
"If it is possible… could you protect us?"
The question settled heavily in the air.
"From whatever dwells in the ruins."
Adan's expression did not change.
"That," he answered calmly, "is why I am here."
"To terminate the evil that has spread across this village."
Silence lingered.
Then Yana smiled.
"Thank you, Father."
The words were warm.
The smile was not.
Adan could not see it, yet something within him tightened. A faint disturbance, subtle but undeniable — as though the emotion carried a weight it should not have.
He had long learned this truth.
Blindness had sharpened other senses.
Where sight deceived, presence did not.
Around him, the villagers remained tense. Their fear had not eased. If anything, it deepened — breathing stiff, bodies unmoving, a room filled with people waiting for something they did not name.
Adan rose slowly.
"I will go to the ruins," he said.
A ripple of unease passed through the cabin.
"You need not worry," he continued calmly. "I will take care of whatever dwells there."
No one stopped him.
No one argued.
And as Adan stepped back into the suffocating quiet of San Isidro, the village seemed to hold its breath once more.
Adan stepped out into the night.
San Isidro remained unnaturally still. No insects. No wind. Only the faint echo of his footsteps against the hardened earth as he walked.
Behind him, the cabin door creaked open.
"Father!"
Yana's voice carried through the silence.
Adan stopped but did not turn.
"Will you be alright?" she called out. "You did not bring any weapon… anything for defense."
The concern sounded genuine.
The village listened.
Adan stood motionless for a brief moment. The silver cross rested cold against his chest. The Bible remained bound securely within his robe.
Nothing else.
"I will be fine," he answered calmly.
No hesitation. No doubt.
Then he continued forward.
Toward the ruins.
Toward the presence that waited.
And Adan walked without fear.
The further Adan walked, the heavier the darkness became.
The faint glow of the village fires slowly vanished behind him, swallowed by distance and shadow. Ahead, the ruins stood without light, without sound — a hollow presence waiting in the night.
No moon guided the path.
No torch marked the way.
Yet Adan continued, steady and untroubled.
Light was unnecessary.
His senses were enough.
The air shifted as he neared the ruins. The stillness changed — no longer empty, but dense. Saturated. Something lingered here, woven into the silence itself.
Adan slowed.
He lowered his hand, fingers brushing against the cold surface of broken stone. Cracked walls. Fallen beams. Earth long disturbed.
He listened.
Not for sound.
For traces.
For memory.
Beneath his touch, beneath the weight of the air, impressions began to form — not seen, but understood. A disturbance once violent. Movements frantic. Fear thick enough to stain the space.
Struggle.
Panic.
Running.
His head tilted slightly.
There had been many.
Too many.
Adan stepped deeper into the ruins, each motion measured, as fragments of what once occurred pressed against his awareness like echoes refusing to fade.
Adan stopped.
The ruins were no longer still.
A sudden disturbance sliced through the darkness — a presence moving unnaturally fast. It darted across the broken stone, then vanished, only to reappear behind him.
Running.
Back and forth.
Circling.
Too quick for human movement.
Adan remained motionless, his breathing calm, controlled. His head turned slightly, tracking not with sight, but with perception.
Light footsteps.
Uneven rhythm.
Weight distributed strangely.
Not a predator stalking.
Something restless.
Testing.
A low sound emerged from the dark.
Not quite a growl.
Not quite a cry.
A warped, unsettling howl that vibrated through the ruins like something struggling between forms.
Adan listened carefully.
Movement pattern.
Speed.
Gait.
There was a distinct irregularity — the creature's motion suggested limbs not designed for forward pursuit, but for sudden bursts, erratic shifts, unnatural angles.
Then he sensed it —
The traces.
A faint, lingering odor beneath the damp scent of earth and decay. Sharp. Acrid. Animalistic, yet wrong.
Recognition settled within him.
"Sigbin…" Adan murmured.
The presence halted.
Silence answered.
The Sigbin.
A spoken of in whispers and fearful superstition. Said to move with disturbing agility, often described as walking backward, its limbs twisted in ways that defied natural anatomy. Some claimed it resembled a distorted goat or dog, others insisted it was something far worse — a companion of darker entities, a harbinger of misfortune, a predator that thrived in secrecy.
It was not merely a beast.
It was an omen made flesh.
And within the ruins of San Isidro —
It was no longer hiding.